RYSA Technologies and Services - Blog #cloudservicesRYSA Technologies and Services - Blog #cloudserviceshttps://www.rysats.com/blogs/tag/cloudservicesThu, 30 Apr 2026 17:26:38 -0700http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[Digital Automation of Dental Health Services ]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/Digital-Automation-of-Dental-Health-Services

"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight." ― Phyllis Diller


Introduction  

A Dental Services Clinic will have a wide variety of services for the patients which includes registration of the patient, booking of appointments, collection of Consents prior to treatment, complete record entry/updates of patient, X-Ray/dental scan reports, treatment procedure advise, follow up treatments, billing, payment processing, etc., Managing all these manually will be a very difficult task even for a small clinic with less than 50 patients on a daily visit.

However, with the abundance of technology availability, using Low Code platforms like Zoho Creator make the whole chain of operations relatively easier and allow the management and Dental practitioners to make a proactive mode of treatments and actions.

Challenges

Below listed points are some of the challenges we have in a Dental Clinic.

Long Registration Process

Given, the patient has to fill up lengthy application forms to register, which involves collecting demographic information along with medical specific details; filling them up manually will be time-consuming and cause the operation team to be busy in dealing with multiple patients at the same time.

Manual Consent Forms and Historical Reports Collection

Also, getting the consent from the patient involves filling out another form and Sign. If you get this form in a simple webform, the patient can simply tick the consent and can even Sign in the screen itself. The stored information can be a permanent record kept in his/her file.

Likewise, the periodic reports can be scanned and uploaded in the patient file and stored in the system. Even if the patient does not bring his old records, the storage can give the complete picture of the patient data since on boarded in the system.

Appointment Booking

Even at this information age, most of the clinics still maintain a paper/excel sheet to manage appointments. Any updates/reschedules/removals will cause further confusion, and the maintenance of the same will be a nightmare. By having a proper Appointment Booking form, we should be able to fill up fresh data for new patients who called for an appointment, and we will be able to auto populate the data for the registered patients in the system. Even we can link the Patient Record file in the appointment report itself for the doctors to view what was done before and others.

Along with Email/SMS/WhatsApp integration, the patient can be notified real time once the appointment is booked. Likewise, a reminder email/SMS/WhatsApp notification can be sent to the patient a day before their scheduled appointments. With specific reports like current day and next day appointments, the operations team can also manage the data and update/notify both patients and doctors quite easily.



Laboratory Reports and samples status

In most of the dental procedures, the dental service provider refers the patients to a specific lab for their reports to be done. In some of the cases, the labs which deal with the procedure, at times, make an incorrect procedure due to a wrong patient prescription. By unifying the data of the patients with the Laboratory department/company, where the relevant person accesses the prescription via a customer portal, it reduces the mistakes and improves accuracy. Even the doctors have the data view even before the patient arrives and can even let the lab to redo the procedures if the reports are not clear/incorrect.


Feedback of Patients

The final feedback of patients of the overall procedure and services of the clinic has to be captured for improving the service has to be made easy. Again, asking the paper form to fill up feedback may not be effective. 



How does Zoho Creator Low Code Platform Help here?

As you see, the above challenges are very much of basic nature if not taken seriously will cause severe issues for both the clinic, patient, and servicing doctors. Zoho Creator, a low code platform, will help in completely digitizing the operations in a very smooth manner. Some of the below features can be added advantages along with Zoho Creator application.

  • Zoho Creator Customized application development allows you to have a quick development of forms, reports, and pages based on the need.

  • Generation of QR code of Unique ID (UHID) of patients and scan the same UHID for multiple actions by Doctors, Front Desk and Lab technicians ensure accuracy and improve productivity. You can refer the link for generating QR Codes. 

  • Integration of Finance applications like Zoho Books help in pushing the Billing actions easy to manage for accountants who do not have to worry about the application logic.

  • Dedicated Profiles setup for Doctors, Patients, Technicians, and Operations team will ensure the subset of data is visible and  relevant to their roles. This is achieved by using the Customer Portal with simple configuration in Zoho Creator. For managing profiles, customer portals, you can refer this link

  • Email Notifications and SMS/WhatsApp Integrations help real-time and scheduled alerting easy for application management team.

  • Dashboards with Zoho Analytics Integration give us good insight of data for the Management Team

 

Conclusion

As the Low Code Zoho Creator application simplifies the operations of a clinic/hospital, digitalization will be very valuable for a long-term perspective.
]]>Tue, 17 Sep 2024 11:53:00 +0530<![CDATA[Automation of Legal Contracts using Zoho suite]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/automation-of-legal-contracts-using-zoho-suite

“Thought is measurable; intelligence is not.”― J. Krishnamurti 

Introduction  

Contracts or legal agreements between parties occur in all businesses. However, the paperwork is mostly based on a specific template for a business with only the data differ for the parties involved. In addition to this, the Signatures of the parties too have to be either manual or scanned and imprinted. 

Zoho Writer, Zoho Creator and Zoho Sign combination will help in Document template creation, customization of the data entry based on template selection and finally the e-Sign of documents will be done quickly and securely.

Use Case  

Assuming you are running a real estate firm which takes care of creating rental agreements/contracts for the Land Lords and Tenants. There will be a definite template you have to stick with for the overall terms and conditions as well as clauses.

The different data which you normally enter are date of agreement, names of tenant and landlord, property name and location, renewal frequency and the agreement period validity. Every time you have to open the template document and find/replace the old data with new information. This at time may be causing incorrect entries and needs proofreading manually. Finally, in order to get the Signature of the parties involved, you will have to wait for the best time for both to arrive and do physical sign and other issues.

To avoid this difficult or duplicate process, Zoho Creator app with simple data entry form along with Zoho Writer which holds the Document Template and fields to be populated from the data entry form. Upon filling up the Zoho Creator Form, the values which are entered in the front end will automatically be mail merged into a new Document based on your naming convention. This document is an extract of the template created by you/your company. Upon submission of the form, the API integration takes care of populating the right fields with the right values, sending the document for Signature to both parties.

 

Below are the mandatory items needed to make this work:

1) A document template for the contract with the relevant fields configured in Zoho Writer along with Signature fields

2) A valid Zoho Sign License to take care of sending notifications to the parties to Sign and complete

3) A Basic Zoho Creator Form with the API Integration of Zoho Writer and Zoho SIgn workflows to complete the overall flow.



Advantages of Zoho Suite   

Zoho Creator helps in preparing the relevant form and also generates document based on the template. The workflow optimization uses the Integration APIs of Zoho Writer helps in populating the template with right field values. Thus, it ensures error free documentation for the contract. Finally, with the e-Signature features of Zoho Sign helps in fully automating the overall business process and reduce the manual tasks and also storage of documents in electronic format. Finally, the productivity and cost saving is huge by having the simplified accurate process of contracts or legal documents. 

Conclusion  

Contracts, Legal Agreements and other key documentation processes involved in every big enterprise. These are time-consuming and also delay the execution of a contract. The adoption of cloud based Zoho Creator Low code app with the integration of Zoho Writer/Sign helps in solving these challenges effectively.

You can check this app for further information.
]]>Tue, 30 May 2023 12:15:43 +0530<![CDATA[Managing PDF documents Using Zoho Creator ]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/Managing-PDF-documents-Using-Zoho-Creator

 “There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.” – Seth Godin 

Introduction 

In today's digital age, PDF documents have become a ubiquitous file format for sharing information. However, it's not uncommon to find yourself with multiple PDF files that need to be merged into one for easier organization or sharing. That's where PDF merge applications come in handy.So, whether you're a student, professional, or anyone who works with PDF documents regularly, this blog will provide you with valuable insights on how to merge PDF files quickly and easily. 

Use Case 

Let's say you have a company where you send life insurance quotation to client based on the need and also merge a catalogue along with all the other product details for reference to the client.

Here's how it could work:

  • The life insurance agent or broker gathers multiple life insurance quotes from various insurance providers.
  • Each quote is saved as a separate PDF file.
  • Using a PDF merge tool, the agent can combine all of the PDF files into a single document.
  • The agent can then add a cover letter or introduction to the merged PDF document that explains the various options and highlights any particular benefits of each plan.
  • The merged PDF document can then be sent to the client's business via email or a secure file-sharing platform.

By using a PDF merge tool, agent can save time and effort by combining all of the necessary information into a single document. This can make it easier for the client's business to review and compare the various life insurance options, and can help to streamline the overall process of selecting and purchasing life insurance coverage.

How Zoho Suite Helps in Automating this? 

Zoho offers a suite of productivity tools that can be used to create and manage PDF files, including PDF merge.By using the Zoho suite of products in conjunction with the PDF merge, you can create, manage, and merge PDF files with ease, all from one platform namely a Zoho Creator Application which covers both your business process workflow and digitalized documents share/sign/email. 

Conclusion 

So if you find yourself struggling to manage multiple PDF files, consider using a PDF merge Integration with your existing application to simplify the process and streamline your workflow. In addition, you can leverage the digital signing platforms viz Zoho Sign to get the documents signed digitally as part of compliance.

]]>Fri, 24 Mar 2023 16:07:18 +0530<![CDATA[Simplify Business Data Monitoring with Zoho Creator]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/Simplify-Business-Data-Monitoring-with-Zoho-Creator

“Data really powers everything that we do.” — Jeff Weiner


Introduction 

Zoho Creator Applications can be made powerful data monitoring tools which allow businesses to monitor their real time data and give business insights. It provides users with the ability to track and analyse their data, allowing them to make informed decisions quickly and accurately. With Zoho Creator Applications, small and medium businesses can stay on top of their data by monitoring changes in customer behaviour, sales trends, leads pipelines, sources and more. Additionally, they can set up automated alerts to be notified when certain conditions are met or exceeded. This makes it easy for businesses to stay informed and make decisions based on the most up-to-date information.

Use Case 

Let us say you own a distribution company of certain manufactured products. You supply these goods/products to different show rooms in multiple cities and also deliver them directly to selective customers. By collecting the data of which distributors are selling more products, which products are overall popular demand, who are the repeated customers, delivery status of the orders, distributors PO request status, pending payments, different warehouses stock status, etc., you can make informed decisions easily.

 

Using Zoho Creator you can develop applications which can help in managing the back end data and also business insights dashboards to monitor without going to every report for validation. Although, there are multiple products like Zoho Analytics provide comprehensive dashboard, the use case here is selective to Small and Medium enterprises who would want to have a concise dashboard with lightweight requirements to capture data.

 

Below sample screenshot will give an idea to senior management to measure the day to day progress of the orders, sales to shop/customers, stock details, etc., without waiting for any manual help or assistance to them.

 

Why Zoho Creator ?

Zoho Creator is a low-code platform that allows users to create custom web and mobile applications with limited/no coding. One of the features of Zoho Creator is the ability to create dashboards that display data from your application in a visual format.It's worth noting that Zoho Creator also has pre-built dashboards templates that you can customize to suit your needs and you can also integrate with other Zoho services to make the Dashboard more powerful and interactive.

Notification support and integration with Zoho Creator will also help in making pre-emptive decisions to run the business in a smooth manner.

Conclusion  

Data monitoring is a crucial aspect of any business or organization. It allows businesses to track performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions. By leveraging the right tools and techniques, businesses can gain a competitive edge and improve their bottom line.Besides the technical aspect, it's also important to have a clear data governance policy and to establish a data-driven culture within the organization. This ensures that data is being collected, stored, and analysed in a consistent and ethical manner.

Overall, data monitoring is essential for any business looking to stay competitive in today's data-driven world. By implementing the right solution and fostering a data-driven culture, businesses can improve their performance and make better decisions.
]]>Fri, 20 Jan 2023 12:12:13 +0530<![CDATA[Facial recognition using Zoho Creator App]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/Facial-recognition-using-Zoho-Creator-App

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” 

– Leo Burnett

Introduction 

Facial recognition is a technique that has been around for some time now, but recent advancements have made it more accessible and accurate. It’s not just used by government or law enforcement agencies anymore - it has found its way into the lives of regular people too. In this article you can find how facial recognition be used/implemented in Zoho Creator

Use Case     

Facial recognition technology is used in various industries like Manufacturing, Retail, Hotel, Events and Entertainment, Health, Banking and Education.

Imagine if you run a factory and like to track the attendance of the employees who are working in the plant currently in their shift.

The employee master is already uploaded into the application with their photos/images.

You can use a Smart Phone/Tablet at the entry gate to take a photo of the employee during entry at the gate. Once the photo is clicked, the application will recognize the employee's face and will update the status of the relevant employee's record. Based on the successful recognition, you can configure your workflow to mark attendance, record his Time-In, alert if needed to Department Head, etc. using Zoho Deluge scripts. Likewise, when the employee leaves the factory a photo can be taken. This can even be made self-service just by hanging the Tab at exist gate or with a concierge/security desk. Upon taking the snap, the application recognizes the face of your employee/visitor and updates the employee data/visitor register. Using this system you will have full data log/audit log of the employee's activities inside the factory.

   

Using Zoho Creator  Solution  

Zoho creator Mobile App with the camera support of the Tablet/Phone devices will enhance the image capture of the face and validate at the backend of the supported third party vendor image repository. With the developed workflow and data available in Zoho Creator backend, you can easily scan through the database of people and provide a valid responses. For this specific use case, the data collected upon Time In and Time Out helps attendance tracking and also ensure a valid/allowed personnel to visit the premises. In addition, the geo fencing features will also help in handling the application use within the stipulated area.

Conclusion     

Given the need of technological adoption to smoothen the registration processes and repeat customer data collection, tracking of attendance and reporting common across different businesses, the Low Code Platform of Zoho Creator with the integration of Facial Scan software will help enterprises to manage their business efficiently with less investment on technology and quick deploy solutions.

   

If you want to integrate or plan to use such features in your existing app or new app, feel free to contact us on our chat or Contact Us Form. 

]]>Wed, 28 Dec 2022 13:02:05 +0530<![CDATA[Enhancing Customer Services with Zoho Suite]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/Enhancing-Customer-Services-with-Zoho-Suite

"Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer."

– Denis Waitley

Introduction

The way businesses are run today has changed drastically due to the introduction of new technologies and the digital space.There was a time when customers and businesses had limited interactions but in the digital age customers are given the option to interact with the businesses.

Zoho suite of products will help businesses move on to the digital space they are looking for.Zoho will act as a one-stop shop for any function across your business.

Use Case

Let us say you are an Insurance service provider. You let customers login to your customer portal and register themselves.

Once the customer is registered they will be able to select the policy and pay for it. During the process, if the customer is stuck or has difficulty in the process they will need assistance.

This is where technologies like Live chat, Raise a ticket or calling directly to a customer support executive will be needed.

Imagine the customer has certain doubts about the policy and would like to chat with an agent using the live chat option.The live chat can be made available at the bottom right corner of the page so that the customer will be able to chat with an agent.This chat can also be done using a chatbot when the agent is not available or busy with another client.

If the customer wants to raise an issue via email they will be able to do it via a self-service form with the details of the issue and submit. The submitted data will be generated as a ticket which is either assigned to an agent who works with the customer until the issue is solved.

If the customer wants to speak to a support person directly, there is an option in the live chat to make an online call directly with a support person to make it interactive and help in speedy resolution.


Solutions Using Zoho Products

The digital process of on-boarding a customer via the customer portal and letting them choose a service and giving them the best customer service and support can be done using a suite of products which expose their API for integration.

For the specific use case here, below Zoho products are considered:

1.Zoho Creator can take care of the front end of the app interaction with the customer as well as the onboarding of the customer to the application. The app is also mobile/tab/web friendly so that the user can work on the move without any issues.

2.Zoho SalesIQ can take care of the live chat option through with the customer will also be able to call the support person directly. The ChatBot option enables the customer to submit queries which will be answered by a bot when the agents are offline or busy.

3.Zoho Desk will take care of generating tickets raised by the customer which are either submitted in a form or sent by email.

Conclusion

By adopting digital solutions, businesses can seamlessly integrate their services with high productivity and accountability too. Happy Customers will be able to rate your services and also give you repeat business and references too.

]]>Mon, 12 Sep 2022 13:55:38 +0530<![CDATA[Building Business Centric Microservices Using Zoho Creator]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/Building-Business-Centric-Microservices-Using-Zoho-Creator

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
― J. Krishnamurti

Introduction

Microservices provide both a business centric and technology/architecture centric approach for developing software applications. They allow you to decouple or loosely couple the components/services connected using API services framework.

Zoho Creator a low code platform for custom application development leverages the microservices architecture which makes you to prepare independently deployable components owned by a small team. Any issues in the services can be easy to identify/fix and easy to redeploy as the processes can be very agile.

Use Case

Let us say you have to process the Insurance claims submitted by the customer which require to be screened, validated and finally processed by the teams of different skill set.

A customer portal for the customers to login and submit the claims, the operations team to validate the submitted claims and pass them to the Finance Team for processing and finally settlement of the claim amount to the customer. At the high level, we have UI component/Login Page in the portal, Zoho Creator workflows/business logic code, the e-Signing of documents where needed, the invoice generation and payment gateway to settle the claimed amount online.

Taking the specific use case here, the suite of products in the flow are, Zoho Creator customer portal (self service portal), Zoho Creator App for processing, Zoho Sign for e-Signature, Zoho Books for generating invoice, a third party payment gateway integration like PayPal, Razorpay etc. All these products can be integrated via API with proper security access tokens/API Keys. Also, you can make the supplementary components like Invoicing, E-Sign, Payment gateway integration as independent reusable components. This helps in reusability across multiple business processes or applications as well. This reduces the cost of developing again separately for different requirements.



Advantages of Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator helps in preparing the relevant forms/reports/workflows for the application to interact with customers and internal staff. In addition, with the OAUTH based authentication between the other Zoho suite of products via API help in smooth integration. In this case, you can completely prepare the relevant set of forms for Zoho Invoice to generate an invoice, prepare the templates or documents to be used for electronic Signature in Zoho Sign, the in built payment workflow helps in configuring the payment gateway like PayPal or Razorpay (India). In case of any other third party API to be used for any of these operations can be integrated to Zoho Creator via API with limited coding and in a highly secured manner.

Conclusion 

Microservices a framework or architecture will help any business to make applications as loosely coupled components. This helps them in a long term to maintain and enhance the features quite easily with very little turnaround time. The choice of the Integration via API helps in choosing different products to evaluate and manage your cost/productivity in an efficient manner.

]]>Fri, 25 Feb 2022 16:13:50 +0530<![CDATA[Business Insights and Analytics Using Zoho Creator]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/business-insights-and-analytics-using-zoho-creator

“The best vision is insight.” – Malcolm Forbes


Introduction       

Business insight combines data and analysis to increase the understanding of a situation, resulting in a competitive advantage for your business.

Zoho Creator as a low-code platform can be used to collect data and help in analyzing the data to create an insight of your business.

Use Case       

Let us say you have a furniture manufacturing plant and a chain of distributors across your country. These distributors have their own showrooms to sell/display the produced furniture.

Assuming a customer visits a showroom and orders furniture. The showroom which acts as a distributor makes an order to your manufacturing plant for the relevant furniture. Upon receiving the order, the furniture will be manufactured and delivered either to the distributor or to the customer as per the requirements.       

The data points involved here are the distributors master data, products data, customers data, warehouse data, logistics data, invoicing and shipment.


Insights     

As you can see, there are multiple levels of data to be analyzed in the flow of business. This will be used for low-level understanding of an issue and taking the right action for competitive advantage.

Following are some of the data that can be collected as insights

  • Number of orders from each distributor.

  • Highest/lowest orders received for distributor.

  • Product models which have very high/low bookings.

  • Showroom with high/low sales volumes.

  • Defaulters - Those who either have long pending invoice payment due or exceeding the credit limit

        

Advantages of Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator as a custom application development platform can be used for creating the business operation database requirements along with analytics driven dashboards for getting the overall business insight.

        

Leveraging the customer portal features of Zoho Creator along with the integration facilities with multiple suite of Zoho products like Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory and other payment gateway providers like PayPal, Razorpay will help the overall supply chain process easier. Below picture shows clearly the same.


With dashboard and analytics, the senior management/Business Decision makers can leverage the Zoho Creator built application as a suitable platform for making great insights and improving the productivity.

        

Conclusion               

Overall the business insight is a tool that will help you in taking better business decisions, Improves operational efficiency and reduce the process cost and increases the revenue of your business.

]]>Thu, 03 Feb 2022 11:53:38 +0530<![CDATA[Custom UI with Zoho Creator Widgets]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/Custom-UI-with-Zoho-Creator-Widgets

“Good design is the most important way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors.” 

-Yun Jong Yong

Introduction

The Human mind is programmed to get attracted to the colors and ambience it perceives. Therefore apart from the app development, the app design also plays a vital role in keeping the user engaged and active in the application.

For creating a fascinating and pleasing effect to its design in the application, Zoho Creator has a tool called Widget. This will let you with additional features to enhance the front-end capabilities of your app.

Widget capabilities

Widgets enable you to:

  • Create and customize features that are specific to your app

  • Redefine the way your application interacts with your customers

  • Take complete control of the front-end design

  • Incorporate third party apps that cater to your Creator app                        

Use Case

Let us take a sample use case of the tourism industry.

Assuming you have a company which provides tourism packages to the customers and charge them according to the package they choose.

Before the customer decides to go for the package, they would like to see the details of the services that are provided in that particular package. It will help them in deciding on the package they would like to opt for from you.

For showing the different available packages, you would need to create a UI that is modern and looks more of your company's standard as well as for the good look and feel for the customers. See the sample shown below.



In this sample widget, the customer will be able to see the packages offered and click on the button to see the details of the relevant package. In addition, the widget can be enhanced to provide multiple UI Options like showing the relevant data in Card Formats, redirected to any pages,etc along with Payment Gateway integration too.

The widget option in Zoho Creator application will give you the flexibility to create a UI which is not only dynamic but also rich in look and feel.

How Widgets work in Zoho Creator?

Step 1:

The widget can be created from scratch by using HTML, CSS and Java Scripts with the required custom look and feel features, standards, logos, any organization's specific standard UI representations as well.

Step 2:

Using the Zoho Creator CLI (Command Line Interface), a project is created with all the supporting libraries. The created widget is placed inside the project folder.

The successfully created project is then packed as a zip file using the CLI.

Please note that any minor change you have to do requires the repetition of building and packaging the Widget. Hence, once you are done with all changes, you can deploy. Else, it would take a considerable amount of time to do and redo of the widget creation process.

Step 3:

Once the zip file is ready, it will be deployed into the Zoho Creator application.From there on, the widget will be hosted inside the Zoho Creator cloud.

You can deploy more than one widget as well for your application depending upon your Zoho Subscription plans.

Conclusion

Thus widget is one feature in Zoho Creator that will give you the freedom to attain the usability you are looking for without compromising on the UI look and feel of the application.

]]>Thu, 09 Sep 2021 11:21:13 +0530<![CDATA[ Customer Portal Users Vs Profile/Developer Accounts in Zoho Creator ]]>https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/customer-portal-users-vs-profile-developer-accounts-in-zoho-creator

“An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.”

— David Karp


Introduction

In this blog, we will discuss about the usage of Customer Portal Users and the developer accounts relevant to Zoho Creator applications. The correct purpose and way to use these two different groups of users by configuring the right roles/permission sets will be discussed here.

Profile/Developer Accounts

These types of users are the internal organization users and the set of developers, application admins and other major players who are part of the company who purchased Zoho Creator and developed the application. They are responsible for configuration, development, managing master data, setting up workflows, roles, application setting changes, Audit management and backup management of the applications, etc.

They primarily have email accounts/login accounts that belong to the same domain as the subscriber/super admin account. For example, if the super admin/subscriber account belongs to XYZ.COM, all these set of users should have their email accounts come under XYZ.COM only.

At times, the developers may not belong to the same organization. In that case, if the external consultant who develops the application can be added into this set of accounts by configuring the account as a developer. This is the only exception where a developer account domain varies from the subscribed user domain. Rest of the users belonging to any other roles must be of this domain.

In terms of the user subscription for Zoho Creator, the licensing cost is decided upon the number of this group of accounts/users you have purchased.

Customer Portal Accounts

Customer Portal accounts are meant to be used by any users who are outside the organization and will be keen to use your application’s specific features. The users include your vendors, customers, visitors of your app who signed up, etc. Unlike the profile users, customer portal users can login via a portal which can be a default Zoho Creator Public domain or a custom domain which can be configured.

The portal users can be grouped based on different permission sets. Accordingly, you can restrict the use of a portal user to selectively see his/her records or reports alone. Other reports/forms will be completely hidden.

These set of users will be available as an add-on feature in Zoho Creator subscription. (As of date, this feature is available only for Premium Plans.)

 

Use Case

Assuming you are running a chain of restaurants with different franchises. Let us assume these restaurants serve certain distinct locations alone. Likewise, the food prepared and delivered will also be taken care by specific staff of those franchises. How to use a single application to cater the needs of all these Franchises?



Set up Profile Account

To develop the application, you should have a developer account /super admin account to start with. Assuming this account is purely your application owner account.

The application can be developed in such a way that generalized forms like order entry, billing, order status, etc can be utilized by all franchises. Likewise, the design of relevant reports and pages should be done by this account.

Lastly, before on boarding all Franchises, you have to define the different permission sets. Let us assume the restaurants are present in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

We have to create 3 different permission sets/groups and the relevant forms/reports mapping to these permission groups. The reports should be designed in a proper filter so that the records of particular location data should not be visible to another location.

Configure the customer portal domain according to the requirement of either the Zoho Default or a domain you own.

Setting up customer Portal Users

With the add-on purchased already for on boarding customer portal users, you can simply create the list of personnel’s and map them into the relevant group.

For example, person who is part of New York operations, must be configured under the New York Permission groups.

This person will receive an invitation email to Sign Up/setting up Password for the first time. Upon setting a password, he/she will be able to login to the portal and see the forms/reports relevant to his profile.

Also, this user has no visibility of data over Chicago and San Francisco Customer Portal users.

With the clear demarcation of customer portal users, an application can be made in a generic manner and can still solve the purpose of an organization which runs with different set of personnel with defined roles without compromising data breach.

For setting up multiple users/profiles, please refer the below blog:

https://www.rysats.com/blogs/post/zoho-creator-profile-setup-for-multiple-users

 

Support of Mobile App for both types of users

Zoho Creator Mobile App can be used by the profile users, Customer Portal Mobile App can be used by the customer portal users for mobile/tab usage.

 

Conclusion

As stated above, with the right choice of segmentation of user base, an application created in Zoho Creator can be efficiently managed with different user base with clear split of their roles/permissions/access requirements with a single application.

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